Welcome to the Institute for Translational Medicine and Therapeutics

 

 

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Our Mission

The Institute for Translational Medicine and Therapeutics (ITMAT) supports research at the interface of basic and clinical research focusing on developing new and safer medicines. ITMAT supports faculty, includes dry and wet research space and amongst its centers and programs are the Penn Medicine Biobank, the Investigational Drug Service and the Center for Human Phenomic Science (CHPS). CHPS is present in both Penn and the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP). ITMAT issues a series of funding calls to support interdisciplinary, translational research including that which crosses the pediatric to adult divide. ITMAT also offers an extensive palette of educational programs in clinical and translational science both for investigators and research support staff.

The objectives of ITMAT are:

  • To cluster, expand, and democratize access to the resources relevant to the conduct of translational medicine and therapeutics and to sustain and expand a visible home for the emerging discipline of human phenomic science; 
  • To increase the number of investigators pursuing translational research and educate the workforce through novel educational programs and targeted recruitments;
  • To identify and minimize the obstacles faced by investigators conducting clinical and translational research;
  • To enhance the clinical implementation of the discoveries of translational research. 

ITMAT includes investigators from all schools at Penn, the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, and the Wistar Institute. Amongst its sources of funding, ITMAT is the academic home for the NIH funded Clinical and Translational Science Award.

The focus areas of ITMAT are:

  • Translational Therapeutics with an emphasis on integrating preclinical science in cells and model systems with mechanistic elucidation of drug action and variability in drug response in humans and
  • Bridging the pediatric to adult divide.

ITMAT was launched formally in January 2005; the first institute of translational medicine in the world. ITMAT has now expanded to include ~2500 investigators in all schools at Penn, the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, the Wistar Institute and the Monell Institute.

ITMAT sponsors workshops on a variety of topics pertaining to translational science and has held annual international meetings each October. The 19th such meeting entitled “From Embryoids to the Elderly; Translational Science across the Lifespan” will be held on October 14th and 15th 2024. Details are provided here

ITMAT meetings have also been held abroad in partnerships with the Universities of Edinburgh and Kyoto.